People's Democracy

School for Hindi Speaking States Held at Chandigarh

Vijay Misra

THE Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) organised at Chandigarh a five day school for party education from March 12 to 16. Party members from 13 Hindi speaking states, namely Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Gujarat, attended the school. While 92 comrades attended it against a quota of 88, 8 of them were women.

On the first day of the school, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury inaugurated the Comrade Rattan Singh Marxwadi Chetna Kendra, the centre for party education, at Dera Bassi near Chandigarh. The centre’s building covers an area of 1,000 square yards, out of the 6,000 square yards donated by Rattan Singh, who is chairman of the Control Commission of the CPI(M)’s Punjab state committee, to the party. See People’s Democracy, March 20 for a report on the centre.

In the school, the teachers who delivered lectures included CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, Central Secretariat member Nilotpal Basu, and Central Committee members Ashok Dhawale and S P Kashyap both. The topics they took up were “Our Viewpoint on Mass Organisations,” “Imperialism and Its Style of Working in the Post-Cold War Era,” “Present Political Situation,” “The ‘Agricultural Crisis and Our Tasks” and “Casteism and Caste Consciousness” respectively.

Every day of the school was divided into three sessions. The first session was devoted to a lecture on the scheduled topic by the respective teacher. The second session was for group discussion, for which purpose the comrades from all the states were divided into seven groups. The third session was a questions and answers session.

The CPI(M)’s Punjab state committee secretary Charan Singh Virdi acted as the principal of the school while state secretariat member Vijay Misra was in charge of the arrangements. The Chandigarh-Mohali organising committee of the party provided the requisite number of volunteers to look after the arrangements.

Among the students, 11were up to 40 years of age while those from 41 to 60 years numbered 60 and 19 were above 60 years of age. As many as 54 had joined the party before 1985, 33 between 1986 and 2000 and 5 after 2000.

According to educational qualifications, up to Matric were 18, 12 were intermediates, 40 were graduates and 22 were postgraduates.

Class-wise, industrial workers numbered 10, poor peasants 34, rich peasants 3, one was from the landlord class, agriculture labourers were 11 and 34 were from the middle class.

Of the students, state committee members numbered 69 and district committee members 18.

Those who read People’s Democracy numbered 10 while 70 used to read Lok Lehar.

Of the students, 36 were attending a party school for the first time while it was the second for 56.

Front-wise distribution was as below: trade unions 6, kisan and agricultural worker front 50, employees front 11, women’s front 6, students and others 19.   

Central Secretariat member V Sirinivas Rao, who were a member of the Central Party Education Subcommittee, addressed the concluding session. Charan Singh Virdi and Vijay Misra also addressed it. Rao said the Punjab state committee of the party had made excellent arrangements for the success of the school.

The comrades coming from the Hindi speaking states left a good impression during the teaching as well as question-answer sessions. They paid good attention to the presentation and participated in the discussion with lively interest. They were of the view that at least one such type of school may be organised every  year on a regular basis.  

Veteran communist leader Rattan Singh presented mementos to all the comrades who attended the school.